Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 3.djvu/701

 THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 6 77

and thefe fmall deviations are apparently owing to the fall- ing of neighbouring buildings. There are in the plain, im- mediately before Thebes, two Coloilal ftatues*, obviouily defigned for Nilometers, covered with hieroglyphics, as well as more modern infcriptions ; thefe ftatues are uncovered to the lowed: part of their bafe ; whereas we fhould have now been walking on ground nearly equal in height to their heads. The fame may be faid of every public monument, if there had been any truth in the furface of Egypt increa- fing a foot in a hundred years.

It appears, at leaftas far as Hadrian's time, that if the peats of the Greeks be the peek of the prefent Egyptians, the fame quantity of water overflowed Egypt as now.

The advocates for the fuppofed increafe of the land of Egypt on a foot in ioo years, prefled by this obfervation,. which they cannot contradict, have chofe to evade it, by fuppofing, without foundation, that a fmaller meafure of die Nile's increafe had been introduced by the Saracens to obviate the Nile's fcantinefs, and this has landed them in a palpable abfurdity; for, while the Nile failed, the introduc- tion of a lefTer meafure would not have increafed the crop ; and, if the quantity of grain had been exacted when it was not produced, this would have only doubled the diftrefs,and made it more apparent ; this would never have occafioned the joyful. cry, Wafaa UUab> God has given us our defire, men J'Mel, alia Jibbel, the Nile has overflowed, from the mountains on one fide of the valley to the mountains on the other. Be-

fides,


 * Shaamy and Taamy, of whom we have already- fpoken,